Saturday, January 23, 2010

RETRO REVIEW: Season 5

Before we look to Season 6, we must first officially close the book on Season 5 with a Retro Review. For those new to the game, I pick the ten most important storylines throughout the season and then rate them. For the record, I go in without an agenda... and the score doesn't necessarily reflect my feelings on the season as a whole. Click below for the reviews and scores of previous seasons.

TIME TRAVEL: Thanks to Ben spinning the frozen donkey wheel in the Season 4 finale, we spent the first chunk of Season 5 skipping through time. This clever device allowed us to touch on lots of Island mythology (more on that later), and the nosebleeds (and one sad casualty) added some suspense and peril to the mix. Time travel is always a tricky thing to pull off, but overall team Darlton nailed it. Hurley and Miles' chat about the rules of time travel is one of my favorite scenes of the season. 10/10

MYTHOLOGY OVERLOAD: Fanboys who whine about never getting answers had no reason to piss and moan in Season 5. We were given the origins of Rousseau, the Black Rock in its prime, a full sized Statue, the building of the Swan and Orchid stations, Desmond in the Hatch again, an inside look of the Temple, how the Monster is summoned (and where he sleeps), the Dharma Initiative, and Jacob and the Man in Black!!!!!!! By the way, Jacob's theme is one of my favorites. 10/10

BACK TO THE ISLAND: I was starting to get sick of the Oceanic 6's problems on the mainland. Good thing we get to see Jack take charge and do what useless Bentham could not.... get them to go baaaaaaaaaaack!!!!! Some go willingly, others not so much. The best thing is that everyone's intentions are clearly laid out and all the loose ends are tied, meaning there shouldn't be any more trips back to the mainland. Two best moments of this stretch: Lapidus flying the plane ("We're not goin to Guam, are we?") and Jack's eye opening up again on the Island. 10/10

NOOBS: Each season, the producers try to introduce some new blood into the show. But for every Ben, Juliet, and Faraday, there's a Nikki, Paolo and Ana Lucia. Unfortunately, most of the noobs end up in the latter camp. Ilana, Meathead, and Caesar were terrible characters. Radzinksi and Phil were terribly unlikeable characters. Amy was terribly useless. The only winner I can think of Dr. Pierre Chang, who knocks this season out of the park... but he can't do it all alone. 4/10

ALPERT, WIDMORE, and the OTHERS: Probably sensing that their new characters wouldn't exactly pan out, genius Lindelof decided to give some more screen time to some old friends. We got to see plenty of Richard Alpert, Charles, and Ellie through years, including Alpert robbing Ben of his innocence, Charles revealing himself to be Faraday's pops, and Ellie's tragic murder of her son. 8/10

THE DHARMA INITIATIVE: The record had to stop skipping at some point, and what better place than the 70's with all their hootenannies? Not only was it a chance to learn more about the Island's history, but it was also nice to see the LOSTies cleaned up and living peacefully on the Island. Overall, the wide cast of characters (Roger Workman, Horace, Amy, Phil, Radzinksi, Chang, and Oldham) were entertaining and the story of LOST told from their eyes was pretty cool. 8/10

LAFLEUR AND JULIET: Ok, I may have promised that I would banish Juliet to the bottom of my power rankings with Kate if she fell for Sawyer, but nobody could've guessed that asshole Sawyer would morph into a smart, capable, leader of Security named LaFleur!!! I totally their love story, which makes it that much more enraging that Sawyer would trade 3 years of Juliet-love for 100 days of Kate-lust. 8/10

NEW LOCKE: The person that just appeared on the beach in a nice suit seemed too good to be true. Yeah, it looked like Locke, but this guy wayyyy different. He was no longer a pussy cripple, no longer asking countless questions, and no longer blindly following. He was a step ahead of Alpert and ten steps ahead of Ben. The Island was communicating like him like never before, and he finally showed some balls by planning to kill Jacob. And yes, he ended up being too good to be true. Turns out that dead is dead, and this guy is really the Man in Black!!!! Great Twist!!! 10/10

WHATEVER HAPPENED, HAPPENED: The train of thought that governed most of the season, the castaways could try as hard as possible, but they couldn't change the future. Or could they? Sayid tried shooting kid Linus, Sawyer tried meeting Desmond at the Hatch, and Faraday tried avoiding his talk with little Charlotte, but they all failed. Faraday died, Charlotte was spooked, and Chang abandons his wife and kid... all as planned. But wait... despite the themes of doom and inevitability, Faraday believes you can change the future, which leads to... 9/10

THE INCIDENT: The finale had several showdowns. We get the story of Jacob, which kicked ass, but back in the 70s, Jack's latest Island mission is to detonate a hydrogen bomb to alter the timeline and prevent Oceanic 815 from crashing in the future? Is this even possible? LaFleur doesn't want to find out, so he challenges Jack to some fisticuff (Jack would've won if not for the low blow). Sayid gets shot in the belly, Juliet pretty much ends it with Sawyer, and dick Radzinski drills into the pocket of electromagnetic energy. Jack's assault on the Swan (which also kicked ass) was a total whitewash... until some debris pulls down Juliet a la Quint. She survives just long enough to bash in the bomb until---- LOST. What a finish. 10/10